Heart and Hearth
by MelissaeWrites
Summary: Jack has spent the past three hundred years of his life making his home all over the world. Maybe it's no real surprise that he can't adjust to living all under it. (Jackrabbit, Jack/Bunnymund)


A/N: Written for Day 1 of Jackrabbit week. "Home".

* * *

The first time Jack spent the night in Aster's warren, he breathed in deep, feeling the wet scent of fresh dirt sink into his skin, ran his fingers along packed-dirt walls, and thought to himself, _I can't do this._

He hadn't slept at all that night, instead staring up at the ceiling and trying not to hyperventilate. The walls were close, too close, and even with Aster's comforting presence not two doors away, he could not banish the rising panic clawing its way up into his throat. Not when the ceiling was that low. Not when not even the slightest breath of wind had been able to follow him inside. Not when he was hundreds of feet underground, if not thousands, if not- He froze up every time he tried to think about exactly where he was while in the warren, and he'd quickly resolved not to think about it, not that resolution meant much at three am.

In retrospect, it really wasn't surprising that Jack was claustrophobic. He'd spent the past three hundred years floating on stray breezes and sleeping outdoors, nestled up in tree branches and resting far above the world below. The warren itself wasn't horrible. On the contrary, he'd spent many pleasant afternoons playing around with Aster in the woods and in the meadows, splashing around in (dyeless) rivers after accidentally falling in (dye-full) lakes. It was easy to forget that they were underground when darting around in the spacious outer caverns. It was only at night, when Aster retreated to dark tunnels to sleep, that Jack really had problems. Night never specifically fell in the warren, and Aster was a rabbit of sorts, so it wasn't a big shock that he preferred sleeping in holes dug underground.

But Jack was not a rabbit, not even of sorts, and try as he might, he could not do it. After years of pranks and games carefully framing a tentative friendship, after months of something that could quite possibly turn out to be more, Aster had offered him a room in his warren. A permanent place to stay at night. A home.

Jack lasted three nights.

* * *

"This isn't going to work."

Aster froze, toast halfway to his mouth. "Pardon?"

Jack dropped his eyes to his own abandoned breakfast. Aster always seemed to have lovely bread, heavy and brown and rich and if Jack had to have one more bite _he was going to throw up_. His stomach was rolling like a ship at sea, and he knew it was just anxiety, but that did not calm that particularly storm at all. "Me. Living here. It's-it's not going to work, Aster."

A number of emotions flew across Aster's face at that, each more complicated than the last. Jack caught something like surprise, but then it wasn't surprised at all, more resigned. There was something hurt in there, something achingly vulnerable, but then it was gone again, sealed away under a carefully blank mask that Jack hadn't seen on Aster in a long, long time. "Oh?" he asked, and there was that blankness again in his voice, a thin veneer covering up something suspiciously hollow.

Jack had thought that he'd managed to help fill in some of that hollowness over the years with successful Easters and snowball fights and afternoons where they'd tell each other everything and quiet evenings beneath the stars where they didn't say anything at all. Hearing it again made his stomach lurch and the words, when they slipped out of him, were uncharacteristically nervous. "It's not you! It's definitely not. It's just... this place."

Aster frowned at that, and glanced around his kitchen, at the well-packed walls he'd dug himself, the furniture he'd carefully coaxed into being from plants only too eager to please their master, the assorted cups and saucers accumulated over the course of one lifetime, or a thousand.

Jack knew about all that. He also knew that the well-loved quilt he'd found on his bed when he'd arrived had to have been made by Aster's own two hands, and that the room had been attentively furnished for his arrival. Maybe even lovingly. All of those little touches, all of those little reminders of Aster, were why he'd kept quiet for three long days. He cleared his throat. "I don't think I like being underground."

Aster opened his mouth, his eyes for once looking confused rather than awful and blank, and Jack cut him off, already knowing what he was going to ask. "No, I mean. The rest of the warren is fine. It's underground, but it doesn't feel underground. This is..." he trailed off, cheeks going vaguely lilac. "I can't feel the wind down here. It's-" Suffocating.

The blankness and confusion in Aster's eyes were melting away to something thoughtful, but it made Jack more wary than relieved. "I see. Makes sense," he said, and Jack's stomach unclenched slightly. "You're not a pooka."

Well, there was an opening. Jack raised his eyebrows exaggeratedly and looked down at his hands. "Oh my god, you're right! I didn't even notice," he said, giving Aster a pointed look.

Usually, this would have made the corner of Aster's mouth lift, would have prompted a counter-attack about Jack's bird bones or his weird, hairless body. But Aster remained thoughtful. "I suppose you'll be wanting to move back out, then," he said slowly, as if he were chewing on some unsaid idea.

Jack waited, but Aster didn't seem inclined to share with the class. "Is that okay?" he asked tentatively.

And then Aster looked downright offended. "Of course it is. I'm not about to trap you down here with me. It was an invitation, not a demand."

"Well, yeah, but..." Jack trailed off.

"No dramas, Jack," Aster said, picking up his toast again. "I'll help you with your things after brekkie."

Neither of them looked at each other.

* * *

Things were different after Jack moved out. He and Aster never seemed to be in the same place at the same time anymore, and when they did run into each other, Aster was a little quieter, a little more distance. The gap that they had been closing slowly but surely over the last few decades was back to being a chasm. But, Jack thought privately after trying to drop in on Aster for the fifth time only to find him mysteriously absent, it was almost worse than it ever had been before. At least before they'd liked each other, they were at least interaction. The fiery arguments were at least heat instead of this tepid... nothingness that seemed to color their current interactions.

He'd been sure that he'd been imagining it. He was sure that Aster was the kind to face his problems head on, eyes flashing and voice raised in a throaty shout. But after a month of almost-meetings and awkward small talk, Jack had to come to terms with the fact that Aster was avoiding him. Moreover, Aster was distancing himself, slowly but surely freezing Jack out until he was all alone on the wind.

It hurt. Jack hadn't realized how much time he'd come to spend in Aster's presence until he, for reasons unknown to him, was no longer allowed to do it. He depended on him more than he'd thought; more than once he'd made a mental note to tell Aster something later only to remember that clearly Aster didn't want to hear it. He couldn't lean on him like that anymore, couldn't soak up the sunshine and comfort that seemed to radiate from him every time they were together.

For the first time in a long time, Jack Frost felt cold. He knew how stupid that was even as he thought it, but he truly felt chilled from the inside out, as if something vital had been taken from him. Now he felt battered rather than buoyed by the wind. It was like being lost even when he knew exactly where he was. It was like being hopeless.

The last time he'd gone to the warren to try and find Aster, the tunnels had been closed to him. In August.

* * *

That Christmas, Jack had found a present from North, brightly wrapped and gleaming on the bank of his favorite frozen lake.

There had been a portal inside, and a note. _"This is for both of you."_

* * *

Jack honestly hadn't been sure what to expect when he used the portal. For some reason, he expected the warren to look gray around the edges, grief-tinged like him. It was just as vibrant as he'd left it, though, eggs waddling awkwardly through large tufts of grass, leaving brightly-colored footprints through the dirt in their wake. It was all movement and life and happiness and it felt _wrong._

It took time to find Aster, but when he finally did, it was because he was the only thing that wasn't moving. That sounded more dire in his head than it really was, but he had to admit that finding the overgrown rabbit asleep midpaint was pretty unusual.

He crouched there in the air for a moment, taking in the sight. It was a little creepy, he knew, but he couldn't help it. It was like he had to drink in the sight, recatalogue the details that had changed and the ones he had forgotten. It was as necessary as breathing.

Aster was thinner, but not to a distressing degree. The past Easter had gone well, clearly, because his fur was just as glossy as always, and his breathing was strong. But there were creases there on his forehead that Jack didn't remember, worry lines that seemed to follow him even into sleep.

Jack swallowed. This was wrong. This, between them, was just completely wrong. It wasn't like either of them to deprive themselves of what they wanted, or so Jack had thought. Maybe he'd been wrong, though, because he knew right then that that was exactly what had happened.

"Aster," he said quietly, and he didn't move when green eyes snapped open.

"Wha- Jack?" Aster's eyes went wide for a moment, then narrowed as he sat up and took in his waking environment. "What the bloody hell are you doing in here?"

Well. That was about what he'd been expecting, honestly. You didn't lock someone out of your house because you wanted to see them. Jack dug around in his pocket and fished out the note that North had left for him. "North," he said shortly, and tossed it at Aster.

Wrinkled as it now was, Aster still caught it easily, and if he'd looked annoyed before, he looked downright murderous after reading the note. "That sorry-"

"He's trying to help," Jack cut in. "He doesn't know what's going on." He forced himself to relax his grip on his staff. "Neither do I, for that matter."

Aster scoffed. "So to find out, you just come traipsing into a place where you're clearly not wanted?" he asked, and Jack couldn't hold back his flinch. "What's your lark, Jack? You've made it clear that this isn't where you want to be."

Jack gaped at him. He was smart enough to put two and two together to find out that something about that day had been what had upset Aster, but hearing it put so petulantly... "Is that seriously what this is about? You did all this just because I didn't want to live with you?" he asked incredulously.

"Of course not," Aster said, a little too quickly, sniffing at the very idea.

"Then what? Why are you-" Jack tried to find some way of ending the sentence that wasn't "doing this to me?" "Why won't you talk to me anymore?"

Aster's eyes shifted away from him. "What is there to talk about?"

Jack blew out an exasperated breath. "We never had a hard time figuring that out before! What's different now?" he demanded.

"We are, Jack," Aster snapped, eyes flashing. "We're different. Completely different. You just helped me figure that out."

Jack hung there for a moment, trying to sort that out. When he finally managed a little "What?", his voice was embarrassingly small.

Aster looked at him for a moment, and Jack didn't know if he was finally waking all the way up or if he just looked _that _pathetic, but Aster's hackles went down. Instead of angry, he just looked tired. "You're... You're not what I wanted you to be," he finally said. Then, as if to himself. "That's not your fault. Just mine. I was fooling myself."

Jack tried to ignore the way that those words made it feel like a fist was closed around something inside of him. "What did you want me to be?" he asked, though he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to know the answer.

Aster went quiet at that, though whether he was struggling with finding an answer or relaying it Jack didn't know. Finally, "Mine. I wanted you to be mine."

"Aster..."

Aster avoided his eyes. "For a while there, I thought maybe we could have something. I dunno what. I reckon it doesn't much matter now. Back then, I didn't want to think about our differences, so I didn't. Simple as that. But then you couldn't even spend more than a few days down here with me in the warren. Why would you? You're not a pooka, and you don't much like the springtime. You're a spirit, to be sure, but closer to human than anything. And a young one, at that." He hesitated before adding, "And I meant what I said, y'know. I don't mean to trap you. It's best that we both just go our separate ways now, while we still can. Wouldn't want you getting hurt on my account."

"You..." There was an emotion building up inside Jack then, one that had been slowly making itself known for months now, fire and ice and desolation. It took him a second to place it as anger. "You're such a dick! You think that's the kind of decision you can just make on your own?"

Aster looked taken aback. "'Scuse me?"

"Do you seriously think that's okay? You just decide for yourself that we're too different to work out like you built up in your head, so you ditch me? After everything we've been through together? Of course we're different, you idiot! That's why we've been so good for each other! Do you think it's fun to just sit out there in the middle of nowhere talking to _myself? _Because newsflash, that's the only other person like me! We're both alone, Aster, and before that was because we didn't have a choice, but now it's because you're being a selfish asshole."

"Now see here," Aster started, eyebrows going down.

"No, _you_ see here," Jack interrupted, "I know you're used to bottling things up like some kind of emotionally constipated asshole or something, but that's why you've got me. Or it's why you _had _me. I don't know why you're so fixated on giving that up."

Aster's mouth twisted, and Jack could see the vulnerability there that he'd glimpsed once, months ago, over a breakfast table. It was under a layer of anger, but it still made Jack's stomach twist to see. "You don't understand, Jack."

Jack touched down so he could take one step into Aster's personal space, then another. "I understand all right, rabbit. You started getting close to someone, really close, and you didn't think that was a thing you could ever have. And you've been worrying that it's all going to crash down around your ridiculously long ears, but you've been too scared to say anything. So the minute when something finally did come up, you just bought into all those worries like they mean anything, like they mean _everything,_ and you dumped me. Did you even think about how that would make me feel?"

He closed his eyes for a minute against the angry tears he could feel starting to build, then opened them again. He wasn't going to hide from this again. "We're different in a lot of ways, Aster, but we're not different there. I was scared, too. But you've always been the only one who could make that go away. When I'm with you, I don't worry about any of those things. And you're saying you were in denial, but I think it's the same way for you. We make each other stronger."

Aster's mouth was slightly open now, his eyes slightly wild, and Jack was so tired of stepping carefully, of being scared of breaking something tenuous that had clearly already broken. So he took the last step forward and pressed his lips to Aster's.

Aster went completely still for one time-frozen moment, then shoved him away. "This is exactly what I'm talking about, ya dill!" he snapped. "Pooka don't kiss!"

Jack rolled his eyes and planted his feet, refusing to back down this time. "So what do you do? I'll try it. And maybe instead of talking about what pooka do and don't do, you can try doing what _you_ do. Instead of rambling about how different we are, how about you open your eyes and see what's the same? We can make some things up too, new things. We don't have to share everything, but we can share some things that no one else does."

Aster stared at him, whiskers trembling, before letting out a long, low breath and slowly lowering his head so his forehead could lean against Jack's. "We do this," he said, voice rough. He turned his head so he could nose at Jack's cheek, nuzzle behind his ear. "And this."

Jack allowed this, then carefully put his arms up around Aster's neck and pressed close in an awkward hug. "I can do that. How about this? Do pooka do this?" he asked, proud that his voice didn't shake.

Aster sighed, breath ruffling Jack's hair, then ran his paws down Jack's back. "Not really," he said, pulling him in close, "But I do."

* * *

Later, after some awkward shuffling and far too many elbows, they'd found a comfortable position sitting on a grassy sort of knoll, Jack's back to Aster's chest and warm arms keeping him close.

"You know I still can't live with you, right?" Jack asked, voice quiet.

Aster nuzzled against his hair. "Yeah. I know. You don't feel safe down there, and I can't help with that. Can't say that I'd feel any better out there in the trees like you perch in, you crazy little galah."

Jack snorted even as he brought his hands up to clutch at the arms encircling him. "Says the guy who lives in a literal hole in the ground."

"Oi," Aster responded, giving him a little nudge. He settled back with a little sigh, though, and Jack's heart hurt at the wistfulness he could hear in it. "I suppose I just wanted to see about making a home with you. See what it'd be like."

Jack looked out over the warren, weighing his words. He didn't want to be careless with this again, not when he knew how much it meant to Aster. "You know, when I think about home, I think about a place where I feel safe. I can just be me, and I don't have to worry about anyone judging me for it. Someplace comfortable, but also comforting," he said.

Aster hummed in assent, and Jack took that as a sign to continue. "And I've been thinking... Before all this, I felt that way a lot. I always felt that way when I was with you."

Aster stilled behind him.

"And I mean, trying to sleep in that coffin you call a house was stressful, but it was a million times worse when you weren't talking to me. I felt lonely no matter who I was with, and I always felt like I was on edge. There was something missing." He frowned. "It really hurt."

Aster leaned forward, nosing against his cheek, and curling up more firmly around him. "I'm sorry."

Jack nodded distractedly, petting against the fur of Aster's arms, knees comfortingly. "Me too. But what I mean is, when I'm not with you, nowhere feels like home. So maybe home doesn't have to be a place. Maybe it can be a person, too."

"And I'm..."

"Yeah," Jack said, leaning back into Aster's warmth. "I'm pretty sure you're my home."

Jack wasn't surprised to feel the ripple under Aster's fur, a subtle shiver that went down to his core. "You might be onto something there, mate. The warren's been feeling awfully empty without all your cheek."

Jack smiled to himself, hearing the unsaid words. He had drifted for well over three hundred years, and he was sure that he would continue to drift for centuries to come. But having this, right here, was enough to make him feel grounded. It was enough to make him sure that where he slept was immaterial; right here, right in Aster's arms, he was home.


End file.
